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Quantum Gravity (General) and Applications 565 Quantum Gravity (General) and Applications Quantum Gravity (General) and Applications 565 Quantum Gravity (General) and Applications Claus Kiefer What is Quantum Gravity? Quantum theory is a general theoretical framework to describe states and interac- tions in Nature. It does so successfully for the strong, weak, and electromagnetic interactions. Gravity is, however, still described by a classical theory – Einstein’s theory of general relativity, also called geometrodynamics. So far, general relativity seems to accommodate all observations which include gravity; there exist some phe- nomena which could in principle need a more general theory for their explanation (Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Pioneer Anomaly), but this is an open issue. Quantum gravity would ultimately be a physical theory, both mathematically consistent and experimentally tested, that accommodates the gravitational interac- tion into the quantum framework. Such a theory is not yet available. Therefore, one calls quantum gravity all approaches which are candidates for such a theory or suit- able approximations thereof. The following sections will first focus on the general motivation for constructing such a theory, and then introduce the approaches which at the moment look most promising. Why Quantum Gravity? No experiment or observation is known which definitely needs a quantum theory of Q gravity for its explanation. There exist, however, various theoretical reasons which indicate that the current theoretical framework of physics is incomplete and that one needs quantum gravity for its completion. Here is a list of such reasons: • Singularity theorems: Under general conditions, it follows from mathematical theorems that spacetime singularities are unavoidable in general relativity. The theory thus predicts its own breakdown. The two most relevant singularities are the initial cosmological singularity (‘Big Bang’) and the singularity inside black holes. Since the classical theory is then no longer applicable, a more compre- hensive theory must be found – the general expectation is that this is a quantum theory of gravity. • Initial conditions in cosmology: This is related to the first point. Cosmology as such is incomplete if its beginning cannot be described in physical terms. According to modern cosmological theories, the Universe underwent an era of exponential expansion in its early phase called inflation. While inflation gives a satisfactory explanation for issues such as structure formation, it cannot give, by itself, an account of how the Universe began. Nor is it clear how likely inflation 566 Quantum Gravity (General) and Applications indeed is. A thorough understanding of initial conditions should shed some light on this as well as on the origin of irreversibility, that is, on the arrow of time. • Evolution of black holes: Black holes radiate with a temperature proportional to , the Hawking temperature, see below. For the final evaporation, a full the- ory of quantum gravity is needed since the semi-classical approximation leading to the Hawking temperature then breaks down. This final phase could be of as- trophysical relevance, provided small relic black holes from the early Universe (‘primordial black holes’) exist. • Unification of all interactions: All nongravitational interactions have so far been successfully accommodated into the quantum framework. Gravity couples uni- versally to all forms of energy. One would therefore expect that in a unified theory of all interactions, gravity is described in quantum terms, too. • Inconsistency of an exact semi-classical theory: All attempts to construct a fun- damental theory where a classical gravitational field is coupled to quantum fields havefaileduptonow.Suchaframeworkisherecalledan‘exactsemi-classical theory’; it corresponds to the limit where the quantum fields propagate on a clas- sical background spacetime. • Avoidance of divergences: It has long been speculated that quantum gravity may lead to a theory devoid of the ubiquitous divergences arising in quantum field theory. This may happen, for example, through the emergence of a natural cutoff at small distances (large momenta). In fact, modern approaches such as string theory or loop quantum gravity (see below) provide indications for a discrete structure at small scales. Quantum gravity is supposed to be a fundamental theory which is valid at all scales. There exists, however, a distinguished scale where one would expect that typical quantum-gravity effects can never be neglected. This scale is found if one combines the gravitational constant (G), the speed of light (c), and the quantum of action () into units of length, time, mass (and energy). In honour of Max Planck, who presented these units first in 1899, they are called Planck units. Explicitly, they read G − l = ≈ 1.62 × 10 33 cm , (1) P 3 c G − t = ≈ . × 44 , P 5 5 40 10 s (2) c c − m = ≈ 2.17 × 10 5 g ≈ 1.22 × 1019 GeV/c2 . (3) P G They are called Planck length, Planck time, and Planck mass, respectively. Structures in the Universe usually occur at scales which are simple powers of the gravitational ‘fine-structure constant’ Gm2 2 pr mpr −39 αg = = ≈ 5.91 × 10 , (4) c mP Quantum Gravity (General) and Applications 567 where mpr denotes the proton mass. Stellar masses and stellar lifetimes can be de- rived, in an order-of-magnitude estimate, from this number. Its smallness is respon- sible for the irrelevance of quantum gravity in usual astrophysical considerations. Structural Issues of Quantum Gravity Quantization of gravity means quantization of geometry quantization.Butwhich structures should be quantized, that is, to which structures should one apply the superposition principle? Following Chris Isham, one can do this at each order of the following hierarchy of structures: Point set of events → topological structure → differentiable manifold → causal structure → Lorentzian structure. Those structures that are not quantized remain as absolute (nondynamical) enti- ties in the formalism. One would expect that in a fundamental theory no absolute structure remains. This is referred to as background independence of the theory. Still, however, most of the approaches to quantum gravity contain at least the first three structures as classical entities. A particular aspect of background independence is the ‘problem of time,’ which arises in any approach to quantum gravity. On the one hand, time is external in or- dinary quantum theory; the parameter t in the Schr¨odinger equation is identical to Newton’s absolute time – it is not turned into an operator and is presumed to be prescribed from the outside. This is true also in special relativity where the absolute time t is replaced by Minkowski spacetime, which is again an absolute structure. On the other hand, time in general relativity is dynamical because it is part of the spacetime described by Einstein’s equations. Both concepts cannot be fundamen- tally true, so a theory of quantum gravity would entail important changes for our Q understanding of time. Experimental Status One of the main problems in searching for a theory of quantum gravity is the lack of a direct experimental hint. For example, in order to probe the Planck scale directly, present-day accelerators would have to be of galactic size. Direct tests are therefore expected to arise from astrophysical or cosmological observations. However, some speculative theories with higher dimensions allow for the possibility of an experi- mental test at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which starts to operate at CERN in 2009. Experiments are available only for the level of external Newtonian gravity inter- acting with micro- or mesoscopic systems ( Mesoscopic Quantum Phenomena). Examples are neutron and atom interferometry. On the level of quantum field the- ory on a curved spacetime, a definite, but not yet tested prediction was made: black 568 Quantum Gravity (General) and Applications holes emit thermal radiation. This is the Hawking effect, named after the physicist Stephen Hawking (*1942) who derived it in 1974. For a Schwarzschild black hole of mass M, the temperature is 3 c −8 M4 TBH = ≈ 6.17 × 10 K , (5) 8πkBGM M where kB denotes Boltzmann’s constant. The black hole shrinks due to Hawking radiation and possesses a finite lifetime. The final phase, where γ -radiation is be- ing emitted, could be observable. The temperature (5) is unobservably small for black holes that result from stellar collapse. One would need primordial black holes produced in the early Universe because they could possess a sufficiently low mass. For example, black holes with an initial mass of 5 × 1014 g would evaporate at the present age of the Universe. In spite of several attempts, no experimental hint for black-hole evaporation has been found. Since black holes radiate thermally, they also possess an entropy, the ‘Bekenstein–Hawking entropy,’ which is given by the expression k c3A A S = B = k , (6) BH B 2 4G 4lP where A is the surface area of the event horizon. For a Schwarzschild black hole with mass M, this reads 2 77 M SBH ≈ 1.07 × 10 kB . (7) M4 57 Since the Sun has an entropy of about 10 kB, this means that a black hole resulting from the collapse of a star with a few solar masses would experience an increase in entropy by twenty orders of magnitude during its collapse. It is one of the challenges of any theory of quantum gravity to provide a microscopic explanation for this en- tropy, that is, to derive (6) from a counting of microscopic quantum gravitational states. Due to the equivalence principle, there exists an effect related to (5) in flat Minkowski space. An observer with uniform acceleration a experiences the stan- dard Minkowski vacuum not as empty, but as filled with thermal radiation with temperature a − cm T = ≈ 4.05 × 10 23 a K. (8) DU 2 2πkBc s This temperature is often called the ‘Davies–Unruh temperature,’ named after the physicists Paul Davies (*1946) and William Unruh (*1945). It, too, has not yet been experimentally tested, but efforts are being made in this direction. Quantum Gravity (General) and Applications 569 What are the Main Approaches? The main present approaches to find a theory of quantum gravity can be classified according to the following scheme.
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